Storage Education Gains More Respect — Finally!

The information technology (IT) infrastructure is composed of six main components — three software and three hardware. The three software components are applications, database management systems, and operating systems. The three hardware components are servers, networks, and storage. A few years ago (and still most likely today), if you were to ask a college class of computer science majors to list the six components in the order in which they had an interest (such as the area in which they hoped to get a job), storage would probably have rated 6th on most students' lists.

This is the Rodney Dangerfield problem (i.e. "I don't get no respect." in honor of the late American comedian who became famous with that statement) that storage has unfairly faced for years. Although numerous exciting things are happening in the other five IT infrastructure components (such as server virtualization and Web development), we would argue that over the last five years storage-related innovation has outstripped them all. That innovation may not be as well-recognized as it should be, but the real challenge for storage vendors and advocates is in understanding the requirements for education and how to exploit these issues to take full advantage of recent and current storage innovation.

Understanding Storage Management Trends, Challenges, and Options

 Since 2006, EMC has published an annual study to help understand how IT and storage managers are coping with organizational challenges related to information storage. Among the challenges highlighted by the most recent study are how to deal with the explosion of data, the increased criticality of digitized information, and the rapid introduction of new storage technologies. The current study was based upon a global survey of more than 1,450 IT professionals (20% managers and 80% storage professional). The study included participants in all major geographies and major industry segments, both EMC and non-EMC storage solution users, and large, medium, and small companies.

The size of the study is both commendable and necessary to be able to derive overall results and to discern any distinguishable differences when analyzed across two or more sample slices. The sample size also had to be statistically reliable and that is possible only with an overall large survey population. EMC has made a whitepaper available that goes into the new survey's findings in some detail so we will focus on two key issues.Skill Set Deficiencies on Existing Storage Teams

 One key finding is that for current storage teams where capabilities were measured as strong, moderate, or weak only 30% of storage professionals were rated as strong. Assuming that strong skills are necessary (i.e., moderate skills are not enough) roughly two-thirds of storage professionals require additional skills, knowledge, and professional development. EMC feels that correcting the skills gap can lead to higher productivity, better technology deployment and management, and more efficient use of current staff.

The Hiring Shortage and Ways Organizations Can Meet Their Hiring Goals
 
 But having a skills gap on existing storage teams is not the only issue. A large margin of survey participants said that the lack of skilled storage professionals is the most serious industry challenge. The implication is that the storage users are unable to deploy storage technologies as completely and efficiently as would be possible if storage teams were fully staffed with fully proficient storage professionals.
 
Solutions from Within and Without
 
That shortage is going to be exacerbated as the survey showed, despite the current economic climate, that hiring plans anticipate growth of more than 17% over a 12 month period. The preferred method is to hire experienced storage professionals from the outside as that reduces the learning period and risks associated with hiring new employees. The law of supply and demand would seem to indicate that outside hires could command a higher salary, but, considering budget constraints and salary equity issues with existing employees, paying new hires higher salary may not be an option. That, in turn, increases the challenge to hire experienced outside storage professionals.
 
One alternative is to make an internal appointment of someone who has some other IT expertise, such as an operating system background. In order to bring the new person up to speed in storage may require on the job training, technology vendor training, and selfdevelopment). In addition, storage certification may be required. Although this whole process takes time (as well as maybe requiring backfilling of the position the new storage professional vacated), doing so allows organizations to demonstrate their commitment to promotion and self-development, which helps reduce the risk of employee turnover.
 
However, internal appointments may not be possible or sufficient to meet all the hiring requirements. A couple of other external options are available. One is to hire a certified storage professional who has little or no real-world storage experience. The plus side is that the person who received certification has an interest in storage and the dedication to spend time receiving certification. A possible concern is whether abstract skills and knowledge can be successfully applied to a particular company's situation.
 
Another similar alternative is to hire a recently graduated college or university student. These individuals typically have the raw talent and training, but the learning curve (time and money) could be high if they lack some formal education in storage. Formal education, in the form of specific storage-related course work, can help ameliorate the learning curve. A final alternative is to engage "pair of hands" consultants, in the sense that the consultant is doing only what an employee could or should be doing. The cost is likely to be higher than an employee (consulting is most cost effective when it is project oriented) and there is unlikely to be knowledge transfer. Pair of hands consulting should be used to fill temporary gaps in internal skills and knowledge. And that leads to the requirement for both internal and external education for augmenting hiring and developmental efforts.
 
EMC's Education-Focused Activities
 
The insight that EMC's survey brings to storage education issues is part of a broader IT education landscape. IT vendors have long recognized that they have a key role to play in helping to educate their customer/user community; on the job training and ongoing public and private training and education programs alone are not enough.
 
The focus of EMC's own Education Services is to help customers bridge the skills gap between information storage and storage management. The overall goal is to enable IT organizations to build a stronger storage management team to help address growth chal8 lenges. EMC has a number of initiatives and programs that are targeted to one or more audiences that can include customers, students, partners, or employees.

 
Mesabi Musings
 
On the surface, some key findings of EMC's most recent annual survey are shocking: 1) roughly 2/3 of all storage professionals require further training, education, and development and 2) hiring the planned number of storage professionals is going to be difficult in the face of already existing shortages. However, on further reflection, the conclusions are perfectly understandable.
 
First of all, storage growth continues more or less unchecked (roughly doubling every 18 months, as shown by a separate EMC study). That alone would put tremendous stress on existing staff and processes such as backup and recovery and disaster recovery. On top of that, storage environments are changing rapidly, in areas including design, deployment, managing storage in virtualized server environments, and the increased need for carrying out a storage consolidation. Thus, existing storage management teams have not been able to keep pace skills-wise.
 
At the same time, IT organizations have been and continue to be under budget pressures that do not allow hiring commensurate with their needs. Coupled with the Rodney Dangerfield syndrome, IT professionals and graduates tend to gravitate to areas where companies are currently hiring.
 
Overall, EMC Educational Services is working hard to eliminate the Rodney Dangerfield effect and give storage education the respect that it deserves. EMC's education strategy fulfills its own logical business purposes (more educated storage professionals means taking better and greater advantage of new storage technologies). However, the rising education boat benefits other sellers of storage as well, but, most importantly, professional storage team members.